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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26499427">Together at Last</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtyArtemisFowlTheSecond/pseuds/ArtyArtemisFowlTheSecond'>ArtyArtemisFowlTheSecond</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Artemis' birthday, Happy Birthday, artemis fowl - Freeform, fowlfest2020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 08:20:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,865</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26499427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtyArtemisFowlTheSecond/pseuds/ArtyArtemisFowlTheSecond</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A piece I wrote for FowlFest 2020. Birthday's are an awkward time for Artemis, especially now when everyone is together for the first time in a while. Angeline has plans for a grand day, but will Artemis enjoy his special day?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Together at Last</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This piece directly references an earlier work I did: "Happy Birthday". While not necessary to understand everything going on, it might help put context to the references made. &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>The house was silent. Artemis sat on the edge of his bed, legs absently swinging over the edge of the frame, staring out the window. He frowned, his frown quivered slightly, so he slid off the mattress onto his feet and headed downstairs to stop himself from crying. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>It was his birthday today. He turned 9 approximately 20 minutes before he woke up, but it didn’t feel like anything special. His father was missing, and had been for several months now, and his mother was slowly descending into madness. He was spending this one alone. Artemis felt his chin quiver again and he shook his head. No. Mustn’t dwell on such things. It was just like any other day……</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>A fragment of a memory came to him as he looked out the window. It seemed like a lifetime ago when those events occurred. The view from his bedroom was different; a lot of things were. Himself included. Artemis stepped away from the glass and headed downstairs to see that his family was already awake and going about their day. His mother beamed at him as he entered the room.</p><p>            “Happy birthday, Arty,” she wrapped him in a warm hug and he awkwardly accepted it. He was still getting used to, well, everything. The body, the environment, the stability. That was the hardest bit to get used to: that things were stable, he could count on each day being somewhat similar to the next. Artemis wasn’t quite sure where he stood on this conundrum, but for now, it would do. At least the rest of his family seemed to be enjoying themselves, especially mother.</p><p>His father gave him a warm smile, “How does it feel? Being a whole year older?” His son answered with a small chuckle.</p><p>“Not much different than I felt yesterday.”</p><p>“Give it time, it’ll catch up to you,” Artemis Sr. laughed and went back to reading his book.</p><p>Angeline smiled up at her son again and took his hands. “What would you like to do for your birthday today?”</p><p>The dreaded question. Artemis didn’t have an answer for it. Truth be told, he hadn’t put much thought into because, in the past, he hadn’t cared much for it. He needed his energy to go elsewhere and therefore, his birthday fell to the wayside. His mother seemed to sense his uncertainty and gave his hands a light squeeze.</p><p>“I figured that you probably forgot, so I planned the day for you!” She beamed at him and while Artemis didn’t feel much better about his mother planning the day for him, she seemed pleased about it, and he didn’t really have much else to go with, so he just nodded his head in agreement.</p><p>“First! Breakfast!”</p><p>Artemis sat down to eat breakfast…. <em>eggs benedict, earl grey tea, whole wheat toast, and fresh fruits… </em>his mind flashed again to the last real birthday that he had. Butler put the plate down, but it was not eggs and wheat toast. Instead, his oldest friend made him French Toast with powdered sugar and blueberries, and of course, earl grey tea. That hadn’t changed. There was a small smile from Artemis as he looked up at Butler and thanked him.</p><p>His mother went on to explain what she had planned for the day, but in all honesty, Artemis wasn’t to keen on it. It seemed like a lot all piled into one day. Perhaps if they had planned this over a week, maybe even a month with how his mother went on, he might have felt different about it. Artemis Sr. shook his head and spoke to his wife.</p><p>“Dearest, let him eat first. He just woke up.”</p><p>Angeline looked over at Artemis, who was still in the process of cutting into his French toast, and sheepishly smiled.</p><p>            “Sorry hon. I’m just very excited to finally spend this day with you.”</p><p>            <em>Finally.</em> That word cut deeper than anticipated and Artemis swallowed hard, trying to smile as he felt the largely unchewed toast try to push its way down his esophagus. There was a slight uncomfortable feeling in the air as everyone sat there in silence. Artemis suddenly became very aware of his chewing and started to eat smaller bits, not making eye contact with his parents. It was quite until his brothers came racing into the room. Well, Beckett was the one running, Myles wasn’t too far behind though, and behind him was Juliet. She seemed a bit disheveled, but smiled when she came in.</p><p>            Beckett shoved a still wet painting into Artemis’ face, nearly dripping red globs of it onto his pants. Luckily, Butler was quicker than dripping paint being handled by an eleven-year-old.  The painting was a surprisingly well done portrait of one of the horses Artemis enjoyed riding, Bailey (who was named by his father). Artemis took the paper gingerly, as to not get paint on anything, and smiled at his brother.</p><p>            “Thank you, Beckett. The proportions are quite good,” he said, looking at the curly-haired brother, who beamed at him. The drawing of the horse itself was nearly perfect, but one could tell that the boy had taken some artistic license in the coloring process.</p><p>            “Myles told me to use Bailey as a reference, so I did!”</p><p>            “If only you listened to me more often.”</p><p>            “You should see what Myles did!” Beckett interrupted his twin and stepped back to give Myles a slight push forward. Myles frowned slightly behind him, but then turned his attention to his older brother. He pulled out a painting as well, and it was dry.</p><p>            <em>Thank goodness,</em> Artemis thought. He didn’t want paint everywhere on his clothes. Myles’ painting was of the night sky and without even examining it, Artemis could tell that the constellations were accurate to this time of year and where they were located. He looked at the two pictures and then at his two brothers.</p><p>            “Thank you both. I will make sure they stay safe once they’re both dry.”</p><p>            “Happy birthday,” his brothers said at the same time, Beckett with more volume than Myles, but both were genuine. They ran off again to the gardens and Juliet, who had been standing back behind the two boys, walked up.</p><p>            She gave Artemis’ arm a playful punch and smiled. “Happy birthday, Arty.”</p><p>            He jokingly rubbed his arm where she had punched it and raised an eyebrow before giving a small smile in return. “Thank you, Juliet.” There was a crash from outside and Myles’ voice called out to Juliet for help. She rolled her eyes and ran after the troublemakers.</p><p>            Artemis turned to Butler and spoke, “At least you only had to deal with one of me. Imagine if you had to deal with two?”</p><p>            Without skipping a beat or lowering the paper he was reading, Butler snorted. “One of you was enough to keep me busy. If there had been two of you, I might have retired early.”</p><p>            His mother looked as if she was going to say something but stopped when Artemis laughed. “That would have been a fair judgement call on your part. I guess I should say that I am fortuitous in the fact that twins happened <em>after</em> me.” Fowl Sr. snickered at this remark and put down his book.</p><p>            “For twins, they are quite polar opposites. Though they somehow complete each other’s weaknesses. If you combined them, you’d get a whole chaotic person.”</p><p>            Angeline scoffed. “I must have known that combined they’d be too powerful, too chaotic, so I had them separate at conception. It was for the good of humanity that they were separate,” she teased, giggling a little at her husband.</p><p>            Artemis Sr. had a response, but his eldest son cut in. “Whatever it is you are about to say father, please don’t. I can see it on your face that it will not be good.” His father responded by shrugging and standing, giving a kiss on the head to his wife. Artemis watched their interaction while finishing his breakfast.</p><p>            “Would you like one too,” his father asked Artemis jokingly.</p><p>            “I’m good. Thank you for the consideration though.” Artemis’ mood was a little better than it had been when the morning started. Snarky comebacks were better than the pit in his stomach he felt earlier.</p><p> </p><p>            Angeline’s plan consisted of a lot of things, but they were all things that her Arty enjoyed, thought he enjoyed, or used to. She was saddened to think that she didn’t know her son as well as she had thought. Many things had come to light over the recent years which made repairing any damage done to their relationship difficult. Time traveling, death, and then coming back. It was almost too much for her to bear, but somehow, she managed to get through it; Angeline was sure it was her husband helped her process it all. That and the fact she had Myles and Beckett. She knew that what she was doing was more for her than anything; she wanted to make amends for all the times Artemis didn’t get to celebrate his birthday because her mental or physical health wasn’t well.</p><p>            She wanted to take him shopping, take out the horses, go to his favorite places, and be back in time for dinner and cake. Artemis let out a sigh and took her by the hands.</p><p>            “We don’t need to do all of that, mother. We can stay home, maybe take the horses out, and just make a day of it here,” he was almost pleading with her at this point.</p><p>            “I….but I wanted to make it extra special. Because we haven’t had a proper celebration in a while, and I want to make it up to you,” her eyes were a little misty, Angeline could feel it.</p><p>            Artemis stared at her for a moment, a bit confused until he realized what she meant by ‘make it up to you’. He smiled softly and shook his head. “You don’t have to do that. I’m sincere when I say that. I’d rather spend the day at home with you, and the rest of the family than going out.” Angeline’s face fell a little.</p><p>            There were many reasons why going out didn’t appeal to Artemis. Mostly because there was going to be people and given the current pandemic, he didn’t want to risk any exposure. Another was that there were people, and he just didn’t want to deal with other people. It was mostly people that didn’t appeal to him. Staying home meant that he could relax some, perhaps do some research, not make a huge ordeal out of the whole thing, but he knew that not doing anything would crush his mother.</p><p>            “What if we found a happy medium so to speak. We can go to Caffe Florian for lunch later today and ride the horses. That way we will definitely be home in time for dinner and cake, which I certainly will not want to miss because I’m sure Butler worked very hard to make it. Does that work?”</p><p>            “You are just like your father, you know that?” She gently cupped her son’s face with a hand and smiled, “That sounds wonderful dear.” <br/><br/><br/></p>
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